


When Every No Turns into Maybe

by zinke



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Five Times, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-17
Updated: 2011-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinke/pseuds/zinke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mistake, Beckett only realized in hindsight, had been in assuming that the playboy persona was all there was to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Every No Turns into Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> For Linz, who asked. A LOT. Many thanks to the incomparable gabolange for the critique and encouragement. I suppose it’s also important to note: this story is not part of the AU series I’ve been posting lately; it lives in the actual (except you know, fictional) _Castle_ universe we all know and love.

Detective Beckett should be downstairs interrogating her jewel-thief-turned-murder-suspect.

Instead, the spare change of clothes she keeps at the precinct lies forgotten on the bench behind her and Kate is staring at her reflection in the mirror. Again.

She’d shucked the three-inch stiletto heels she’d worn to the Metropolitan American Dance Theater Benefit as soon as she’d stepped into the locker room. The pins holding her hair in place had been the next to go, pulled out by the handful and left scattered across the bottom of her locker like some miniature version of Pick Up Sticks.

But the dress…

Carefully, Kate runs her hands down the length of the bodice, the pads of her fingers tingling as they pass over the intricate beading, following the curves of her body from breasts to hips. The fit is beyond perfect, irrefutable evidence that Castle’s been observing a hell of a lot more about her than the way she wields a gun.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kate knows she should be more put out about that than she is. Instead, all she can think about is the way her stomach had flipped, just a little bit, as she pulled the lid off the box and pushed the tissue paper aside.

Castle is certainly no fairy godmother. But tonight, for an hour or two, he somehow managed to make her feel like Cinderella.

Kate knows she has a murder to solve. But she stubbornly hangs on to the fairy tale anyway, for just a few minutes more, if only because she likes the unfamiliar feel of it against her skin.

*~*~*~*~*

Nikki Heat gets three more books and Kate Beckett gets three more years.

She’d be a fool to think she’ll be able to get rid of him sooner. Castle will go on shadowing her every move, ignoring her every instruction with terrible puns, thinly-veiled innuendo, impudence, overbearing ego and… What Beckett is still struggling to come to terms with as she guides her car off the West Side Highway towards their next crime scene is how damn happy she is about it.

Castle’s frequent appearances on Page Six had all but guaranteed that his rather colorful reputation had preceded him; and his antics in the interrogation room when she’d first picked him up for questioning on the Tisdale murder had only helped to reinforce everything she’d read about him over the years.

Her mistake, Beckett only realized in hindsight, had been in assuming that the playboy persona was all there was to him.

There’s a part of Castle that is all the things the tabloids and gossip columnists accuse him of. But he’s been hanging around her long enough now for Kate to realize just how diligently he works to ensure that the rakish façade is all most people will ever get to see.

“So what have we got this time? Hanging? Poisoning? Decapitation?”

Kate shakes her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Castle; just a run-of-the-mill GSW. A _New York Ledger_ delivery man was found shot in the back of his truck this morning.”

“Kind of brings a whole new meaning to ‘black and white and _red_ all over’, doesn’t it?”

Beckett gives Castle a pointed glare across the car’s gearshift as she pulls up to the scene. He grins unrepentantly back at her and, their ritual complete, he turns and literally bounces out of the car. Beckett watches him go, the ghost of a smile gracing her lips as she follows him out of the car and ducks under the yellow tape.

“What have we got?”

*~*~*~*~*

As far as apologies go, the Mount Everest of take-out boxes sitting at the edge of her desk isn’t all that creative. But when the provider of that apology happens to be Castle, Beckett has to admit the gesture is kind of sweet.

Honestly, Kate’s a little surprised Castle hasn’t shown up sooner; she’s learned the hard way about his impulse to fix things when someone he cares about is suffering. That he’s kept himself away and given her the space she’s needed these past few days speaks more loudly than any peace offering he might have brought her.

“Hey.” Castle grins uncertainly at her around a mouthful of Khao Phat Koong. “You okay?”

“Fine.” For the first time since she held the model of the knife that had killed her mother, she actually means it.

“Good.”

Beckett catches the mischievous gleam in his eye just in time. Reaching out, she skewers his roving chopsticks with her own before he’s had a chance to snatch her last piece of ginger beef. “Not a chance, Castle,” she scolds, smirking triumphantly at him across the tangle of their utensils.

Castle narrows his eyes at her and smirks. “Not today, maybe. But just you wait. When you’re least expecting it…Bam!”

Extracting her chopsticks, Kate arches an eyebrow and tilts her take out box toward him. “Or you could just ask.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he scoffs as he plucks the last piece of beef from the container and pops it into his mouth.

Kate eyes him speculatively for a moment. “You know what Castle? You’re right.” She quickly reaches out to steal a shrimp from his plate. “I could use a little fun.”

“Well then, I’m your guy.”

Beckett smiles and holds his gaze for a second longer, then reaches for the lo mein.

*~*~*~*~*

Kate can’t say what it is exactly that wakes her.

At first glance, nothing seems out of place; the weak light from the streetlamp outside is casting the same familiar shadow across the floorboards of her bedroom. In the distance she can hear the lonely wail of an approaching siren, but Kate’s a cop who has lived in New York all of her life; such sounds had little more than background noise to her a long time ago.

Tonight, though it’s different. Tonight, there’s a killer on the loose; and while that in and of itself isn’t anything new, the fact that _she_ is a target certainly is.

No. Not Kate. Nikki. Nikki Heat.

While having Castle around has become almost second nature to her, being the living, breathing embodiment of Nikki Heat has not. Wary of the spotlight and less than enamored of everything that comes with it, Kate has taken care to do everything she could to differentiate and distance herself from the character she’s inspired.

And with one hollow ring of the telephone all those carefully drawn lines had been erased. The unwanted blurring of fantasy and reality has shaken her more than she cares to admit – and it’s beginning to show.

Sweeping her hair out her eyes, Kate pulls back the covers and rises from bed. She’s halfway to the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face when she hears it, rumbling down the short length of her hallway like the F train at rush hour. Heart pounding, Kate peers into the darkness, taking care not to make any unnecessary noise as she slips down the corridor. As she moves into the living room Kate hears it again – less steady, deeper this time – and feels the faintest of smiles pull at the corners of her mouth when she realizes what – or rather whom – is making all the noise.

Her eyes confirm her suspicions a moment later: Castle is still here, just like he said he would be.

There’s a part of her that wants to be irritated with him for staying, but try as she might the emotion just won’t come. Instead, Kate settles for watching him sleep, allowing herself the luxury of soaking in his presence before taking herself back to bed.

*~*~*~*~*

Outwardly, Castle has been his usual confident and enthusiastic self. He still brings Beckett coffee every morning, teases and flirts with her and spins his fantastical stories while Ryan and Esposito listen with rapt attention. But underneath all the usual witticisms and cheek, something essential has been missing that Kate can’t quite put a name to; and it has her more worried about him that she’d like to admit.

Whatever Jerry Tyson said to Castle during the hour or so they were alone in that motel room has shaken him in a way Beckett would have never before thought possible. She only wishes she’d been able to recognize it sooner, before Castle had taken a swing at a suspect in the middle of her interrogation and in full view of both Esposito and Captain Montgomery.

She’d had no choice but to take him off the case and send him home.

Almost eight hours later, home is where Beckett should be heading, too. Instead she’s standing just inside the turnstiles at Union Square, staring up at the directory sign as if she were some country-bumpkin tourist and not a born and bred New Yorker who’s been riding the subway since before she could walk.

Try as she might, Kate can’t get the memory of the look on Castle’s face as he’d turned to leave out of her head.

Before she’s had a chance to fully realize what she’s doing, her feet have carried her down the passageway to join the press of bodies fighting their way onto the downtown R.

Twenty minutes later, she’s knocking on Castle’s front door, a hastily purchased bottle of Pinot Noir in her free hand. “I couldn’t find any Chateauneuf du Pape,” she says as he opens the door, holding out the wine with a nervous smile.

Castle accepts the bottle and invites her in.

 

*fin.*


End file.
